THE ETHICAL AND STRUCTURAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THREE TEMPTATIONS IN THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

Nadine Natov, The George Washington University

PART I

Dostoevsky's work may be characterized as a continuous creative progression. His last novel, The Brothers Karamazov, provides a new clue to the exegesis of the Three Temptations of Jesus in the desert and to the importance of this Gospel story for Dostoevsky's ethical vision, a story which had already been given artistic incarnation in his earlier works.

This paper deals with two related topics: First, the problem of the interpretation of the story of the Three Temptations of Jesus in the wilderness, as told in the Synoptic Gospels; and second, the implication of the idea of the Three Temptations as a pivotal, ethical motivation for Dostoevsky's protagonists and as a structural principle underlying the development of the events narrated in The Brothers Karamazov.

In the tavern of a provincial town Ivan Karamazov recites a "poem" to his younger brother Alesha, indicating that although he was unable to compose verse, he "had thought of the idea for a poem and had remembered it." (1)

Dostoevsky emphasized that he considered "Pro and Contra" --the fifth book of the novel which includes Ivan's confession to his brother, his "rebellion," and his "poem" "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," -- the "culminating point of the novel." (2)

In Ivan's "poem," the Grand Inquisitor, a powerful figure created by Ivan's rebellious mind, focuses his attention on the temptations of Jesus by the "terrible and wise spirit, the spirit of self-destruction and non-being." The story of the temptations, told from the Grand Inquisitor's point of view, is the culminating point of the monologue he delivers before Jesus Christ, who listens till the end without saying a word.

It should not be forgotten that during the four years Dostoevsky spent in the Omsk prison he was allowed only one book to read and meditate upon. That book was the Bible given to him in Tobolsk, in January of 1850, by Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizin, the wife of the Decembrist M. Fonvizin. Dostoevsky later often recalled the courageous women who sacrificed everything to follow their husbands to Siberia. Natalia D. Fonvizin, Praskovia E. Annenkov and her daughter Olga, and Josephine A. Muraviev "prevailed upon the superintendent to arrange a secret meeting with us in his apartment," Dostoevsky wrote in 1873. "The meeting lasted one hour. They blessed us who were about to start on a new journey; they

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crossed us and gave us copies of the New Testament -- the only book permitted in prison. It lay for four years under my pillow in penal servitude. Sometimes I read it to myself and -- sometimes to others..." (3)

This constant meditation on the Scriptures taught Dostoevsky to perceive events and ideas of the modern world through the prism of biblical history and religious symbolism. The age-old biblical prophecies and parables illuminated for him not only the remote past, bút alsó the present; the past shed light on Dostoevsky's contemporary reality, and influenced his vision of the future.

The episode of the temptations of Jesus in the desert is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels in three different versions: by St. Matthew (4:1-11), by St. Luke (4:1-13). and by St. Mark (1:12-13). (See Appendix.) The most important difference between the otherwise virtually identical stories of St. Matthew and St. Luke is the sequence of the temptations. The second temptation in St. Matthew's Gospel — the one fór which the Devil took Jesus to the holy city -- becomes the third in St. Luke's story, and the city is named: Jerusalem. Therefore, the third temptation described by St. Matthew --the temptation of power over the world -- corresponds to the second temptation in St. Luke's Gospel.

In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky follows the sequence of temptations described by St. Matthew; the Grand Inquisitor designated them as temptations by miracle, mystery, and authority (čudo, taina i avtoritet), which, in my opinion, can be applied to all three. (4) Edward Wasiolek in his book Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction applied it only to the second temptation.

Christ had bade men to follow his example, the essence of which was contained in his rejection of Satan's three temptations in the wilderness: (1) to turn stones to bread, (2) to prove his divinity by performing a miracle, (3) to agree to the worship of earthly power.. For some perverse reason -- Magarshack and Rahv are examples -- many critics persist in seizing upon the words "miracle, mystery and authority" as the three temptations, whereas for Dostoevsky these are clearly the instruments of the second temptation only: man's eternal desire for proof or certainty before giving his faith. The eternal instruments of this deceptive proof are miracle, mystery, and authority. (5)

Wasiolek emphasized that "the three temptations are the three great limitations of a free faith, and added: "A free faith for Dostoevsky is a faith without conditions; it is a faith that knows only the free movement of the heart" (p. 170).

Before beginning our analysis of the significance of the three temptations for the artistic and ideological structure of Dostoevsky's works, let us see how the Gospel story has been interpreted by certain theologians and literary critics

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The quest for the historical Jesus and the desire to recover the genuine environment and political, social and religious ambience of the first century A.D. led to a reevaluation and reinterpretation of the Gospels.

Voltaire's devastating rejection of the Judaeo-Christian religion (written in 1736) (6) attracted few followers until the appearance of the nihilists in the 1850's-18601s and the militant Marxist atheists. Edward Taylor, an American pastor in a Massachusetts church, examined the Gospels in detail in his work Harmony of the Gospel written about 1690-1710, a work that remained in manuscript form until 1951. A large part of the second volume of Taylor's work is devoted to a "positive" and "negative" interpretation of the three temptations. Taylor emphasized that after Jesus had been baptized, and the Holy Ghost had come down to Him in the form of a dove, Jesus made his entrance "upon his public work." Taylor believed that Jesus' fasting in the desert was "probably joined in prayer in order to the Worke Before Him." (7) Taylor quoted the Synoptic Gospels and commented that it was the Holy Spirit who led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the Devil. The purpose of this confrontation with the Devil was "to try his skill and might upon him" (p. 235).

Taylor emphasized that "Christ was full of the Holy Ghost." Therefore he was able to properly observe the Divine Ordinances and to resist all "the assaults of the Devil." Taylor added: "Christ's example is our pattern: he having attended returns home again." Taylor concluded this part of his exegesis by teaching men "That when persons are under the Full gales of the Spirit of God, they are in the best Capacity to encounter with the Assaults of the Adversary" (pp. 235-236).

Taylor ends his discussion of the first temptation with a warning that the Devil "puts on what appearance he will," he may come even as a Angel of light. But "There is alwayes a doore open to a Child of God to escape Satan's temptation, if God do but inable the Soule to set it & take it" (p. 261) .

Commenting on the second temptation and its place, Taylor remarked that "Satan may lead a Child of God unto most holy places on a Design to force him into most horrid villainy there" (p.257). Thus Christ was "mightly assaulted in the Holy City, & on the Holy temple." Taylor considered the second temptation, the attempt to lead the Child of God to utter ruin as the most evil, because "Satan's greate Design against the Child of God is to bring him to doubt whether he is a Child of God. Thus he attempted in respect unto Christ: he tempted Him to call his Sonship into Question" (p. 276). Taylor also remarked that "Satan's use of scripture is a grand abuse of it," and that Satan perverted the sense of the Scripture (p. 277).

Beginning his discussion of the third temptation, which took place on an exceedingly high mountain, Taylor said: "The Divell in his former Assaults fought to have Christ yield him Obedience as his Lord before, & now he seeks to have Him

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worship him as his God" (p.281). Taylor's analysis of the time Jesus spent in the desert -- forty days of fasting, meditating and fighting the Devil — and his detailed pro and contra discussion of the three temptations already contain basically everything that will be said by the great thinkers of the nineteenth century.

The first theologian who had attempted to form a historical conception of the life of Jesus was Hermann S. Reimarus (1693-1768), the man who inaugurated the investigation of this troubled period of man's existence. Reimarus' basic work, a fragment entitled "Von dem Zwecke Jesu und seiner Jiinger" ("The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples") was first published by G. E. Lessing in 1778, and commented on by David F. Strauss in 1862. Further research on the problem on the Christ of Faith and the Jesus of History followed, culminating in the second half of the nineteenth century through Albert Schweitzer (Das Messianitäts- und leidensgeheimnis. Eine Skizze des Lebens Jesu. Tubingen 1901); Frangois Mauriac (Vie de Jésus, Paris, 1936); and several others. As Albert Schweitzer remarked in his book Quest of the Historical Jesus, "There is no historical task which so reveals a man's true self as the writing of a Life of Jesus." (8) Andrei Bogoliubov also said in his book of 1968 that the necessity of writing new variants of the life of Jesus increases, instead of decreases, because every new historical period requires its own key to the gospel: "Kazhdaia novaia epokha trebuet svoego kliucha k Evangeliiu." (9)

From the vast amount of literature on the historical Jesus, we will select a few works we consider the most important, and see how the episode of the temptations in the wilderness has been interpreted by various theologians, philosophers and historians.

The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher was the first scholar to speak publicly about the life of Jesus. Schleiermacher's lecture, first read in 1819 and repeated four times, remained unpublished until 1864. His analysis of the historical and factual background of the first century A.D. led him to revise the text of the Gospels and, what is especially important for the present study, the passages about the temptations.

For Schleiermacher, the person of Jesus is the object of faith:

So then, if the person of Jesus is to be, as it is, the object of faith, we must think of his spiritual development from the moral side as without sin and as a transition from innocence to pure morality. It follows from this that we must also think of his intellectual development as the pure transition from ignorance to certainty, without passing through the state of error. (10)

While noting the discrepancies between the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew, Schleiermacher remarked:

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Taken individually the temptations are similarly recorded, but not in their sequence. They differ also in their whole view of the event, for in Matthew Christ fasts for forty days, but no one knows why and what actually happened during that time. In Luke Christ is tempted for forty days, but this state of being tempted is referred to only in the general. Nothing in detail is mentioned. The detail is introduced only in what follows. (11)

Schleiermacher's main thesis was that long before the Baptism the course of Jesus' life had already been determined by "the inner self-consciousness peculiar to himself..." and, therefore, it was useless to tempt Him, He was equipped with divine power, and thus free of all sin. Schleiermacher then concluded that Satan's propositions were without attraction for Christ because his divine nature had no inclination in those directions.

Schleiermacher interpreted the story of the temptations as a vision :

It was a vision Christ experienced, and he told his disciples of this vision. Similar to this is the idea that the whole affair was a dream that Christ dreamed which he recounted with such vitality that his disciples were misled into regarding it as a historical account. If we think of a vision as something effected supernaturally, it must therefore have been the result of a foreign influence that entered his soul. On the other hand, if we think of a vision as a product of a heightened condition of an individual's soul power, in other words, as a product of an exalted fantasy, then, if it is his own work, it can never be untrue to the character of the man. The same thing is true of a dream, to the extent that the dreamer can believe it is worth the trouble of recounting the dream. (12)

Schleiermacher also considered the whole Gospel account as a parable ,

a parable in which Christ presented himself as the subject, a parable about himself, but for his disciples. The various parts of the temptation story contain rules for the disciples which were of the greatest importance with reference to the manner in which they should organize their leadership i.: the office entrusted to them. (13)

The young Hegel, in his "Life of Jesus," never mentioned Satan as the seducer who tried to distract Jesus from his determination to follow his chosen moral law. Hegel viewed what is known as the diabolic temptation as only a part of Jesus' spiritual development and his meditations. In view of the importance of Hegel's opinion expounded in this work, which is not widely known, we give here a long quotation. Hegel wrote:

... we have very few indications as to how Jesus devel-
 

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  oped spiritually during this period of his life. But once, during an hour of solitary reflection (Luke 4; Matt. 4), it occurred to him that perhaps by studying nature he might, in league with higher spirits, actually seek to transform base matter into a more precious substance, into something more immediately useful to man, e.g., converting stones into bread. Or perhaps that he might establish his own independence of nature altogether while hurtling down from a high place. But as he reflected on the limits nature has placed on man's power over her, he rejected such notions, realizing that it is beneath man's dignity to strive for this sort of power when he already has within himself a sublime power transcending nature altogether, one whose cultivation and enhancement is his true life's calling. On another occasion there ran before his mind's eye all the things that man counts as great and worthy objects of his activity -- to rule over millions, to be on the lips of half the world, to see thousands dependent on one's will and whim, or to live happily in pursuit of pleasure and gratification of whatever one wishes, having everything that rouses one's vanity or stimulates one's senses. But reflecting further on the conditions under which one could attain these, even supposing one intended to make use of them only for the well-being of mankind -- realizing that he would have to subject himself to his own and other's passions, forget his higher worth and relinquish his self-respect -- he rejected the notion of bring such wishes to fruition and gave no further thought to the matter. Determined to remain forever true to what was indelibly written in his heart, i.e., the eternal law of morality, he revered only him whose sacred will can be swayed by nothing but this law. (14)

Ernest Renan in his famous work Vie de Jésus published in 1863 noted that in ancient times people considered solitary life the essential characteristic of the prophets and holy men. He who aspired to exert a powerful influence on people had to retreat into the desert; such, a retreat became the condition and the prelude to a higher destiny.

Renan thought that Jesus was still unsure of his mission even during the time he spent with John the Baptist. A retreat into the desert and total solitude were necessary for' Jesus to become conscious of his Messianic task.

Renan devoted only one page to Jesus' stay in the desert of Judea. He considered only the "meager and concise narrative of Mark," which "evidently represents the primitive compilation," as based, supposedly, on a real fact. This fact, Renan said, "furnished later the theme of legendary developments." About what "was generally considered as the preparation for great things, as a sort of 'retreat' before public acts," Renan wrote:

Jesus followed in this respect the example of others, and passed forty days with no other companions than savage beasts, maintaining a rigorous fast. The dis-

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ciples speculated much concerning this sojourn. The desert was popularly regarded as the residence of demons. There exist in the world few regions more desolate, more abandoned by God, more shut out from life, than the rocky declivity which forms the western shore of the Dead Sea. It was believed that during the time which Jesus passed in this frightful country, he had gone through terrible trials; that Satan had assailed him with his illusions, or tempted him with seductive promises; that afterward, in order to recompense him for his victory, the angels had come to minister to him. (15)

Renan is very brief concerning the impression made on Jesus by his sojourn in the wilderness. Having learned of the arrest of John the Baptist on his return from the desert, Jesus "regained Galilee, his true home, ripened by an important experience, and having, through contact with a great man, very different from himself, acquired a consciousness of his own originality." (16)

Renan considered that Jesus' main idea of the "kingdom of heaven" was the result of the natural progression of his thought. Jesus, as Renan wrote, gave to the concept "kingdom of God" or of heaven a moral sense:

He declared that in the present world evil is the reigning power. Satan is "the prince of this world," and everything obeys him. The kings kill the prophets. . . The "world" is in this manner the enemy of God and His saints: but God will awaken and avenge His saints. The day is at hand, for the abomination is at its height. The reign of goodness will have its turn. (17)

Jesus was sure it was He who had to establish the Kingdom of God. Renan commented that this idea made Jesus a virtuous man

who had been mighty both in words and in works, who had discerned the good, and at the price of his blood has caused its triumph. Jesus, from this double point of view, is without equal; his glory remains entire, and will ever be renewed. (18)

The interpretation of the biblical story by the German theologian David Friedrich Strauss is important for the present study not only because his book The Life of Jesus is a landmark in the history of crisis in European theology, but mostly because Dostoevsky knew it, as he knew Renan's book.

Dostoevsky referred to Strauss in his Diary of a Writer, 1873, in the articles "Old People" and "One of the Contemporary Falsehoods." (19) Dostoevsky rejected Strauss' anti-Christian views and considered his theory a source of moral nihilism. The American scholar Victor Terras regarded Strauss' Life of Jesus as one of the many sources of "The Grand Inquisitor," because this book is "one of those explicitly acknowledged by Dostoevsky." Terras remarked:

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In reducing Christ to an historical - albeit sublime -personage, Strauss had also given a "mythic" interpretation to the three temptations of Christ. In a passage of his Diary of a Writer, Dostoevsky suggests that Strauss may have had the noblest intentions when he replaced Christianity with humanism, but also that "if these contemporary higher teachers were given a full chance to destroy old society and build from the bottom up," a horrible nightmare would be the result. (20)

David Strauss' interpretation of the biblical stories as myths has a long pre-history. In the introduction to his book Strauss reviewed the rise of the "mythical mode of interpreting the sacred history," in reference to the Old and New Testament.

Strauss referred to the opinion of some biblical critics (including G. L. Bauer), who gave the following general definition of the mythus:

It is the representation of an event or of an idea in a form which is historical, but, at the same time characterized by the rich pictorial and imaginative mode of thought and expression of the primitive ages. They also distinguished several kinds of mythi.

   1st. Historical mythi: narratives of real events coloured by the light of antiquity, which confounded the divine and the human, the natural and the supernatural.

   2nd. Philosophical mythi: such as clothe in the garb of historical narrative a. simple thought, a precept, or an idea of the time.

   3rd. Poetical mythi: historical and philosophical mythi partly blended together, and partly embellished by the creations of the imagination, in which the original fact or idea is almost obscured by the veil which the fancy of the poet has woven around it. (21)

Strauss was aware that the assertion that the Bible contains mythi was directly opposed to the convictions of faithful Christians. Nevertheless, he insisted on his theory; in the second part of his voluminous work, Strauss discussed at length all the circumstances of the story of the temptations. Strauss analyzed all the divergences in place and time in the various versions of the Evangelists. He noted:

The impossibility of conceiving the sudden removal of Jesus to the temple and the mountain, led some even of the ancient commentators to the opinion, that at least the locality of the second and third temptations was not present to Jesus corporeally and externally, but merely in a vision; while some modern ones, to whom the personal appearance of the devil was especially offensive, have supposed that the whole transaction with him passed from beginning to end within the recesses of the soul of Jesus. (22)

After having reviewed the opinions he selected, Strauss said:

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If the foregoing discussions have proved that the temptation, as narrated by the synoptical Evangelists, cannot be conceived as an external or internal, a supernatural or natural occurrence, the conclusion is inevitable, that it cannot have taken place in the manner represented. (23)

Finally, Strauss concluded that if it can be shown that the narrative of the temptations "is formed less out of instructive thoughts and their poetical clothing, as is the case with a parable, than out of the Old Testament passages and types, we shall not hesitate to designate it a mythus." (24)

Among the more recent, post-Dostoevskian interpretations of the temptation story, the works of George Stephan Painter, Rev. Father Bruckberger, Francois Mauriac, and Romano Guardini are all noteworthy, but for the sake of this study, we will concentrate on the work of Painter.

The American scholar George Stephan Painter in 1914 devoted a book length work to the study of the interpretation of the story of the temptations. He considered the recorded "Temptation" of Christ as "one of the most remarkable creations of religious literature"; and as a "highly artistic creation, a poem and a philosophy." (25)

Painter indicated that "temptation is a possibility because of the constitution of our moral nature" (p. 129). Man's freedom of will is the only means to overcome temptation: "Temptation is primarily in man's self, in his own moral freedom." Painter said further:

That devils, conceived as evil spirits, may exist must be granted; and it is also true that those of whom we have certain knowledge are clothed in human form. But that there is a devil, conceived as a universal or omnipresent evil personage, must be unreservedly denied.

Therefore, "It results as a possibility of choice between good and evil, known or believed in" (p. 195).

We can see that in his interpretation of man's potential to resist evil temptations Painter is close to the moral teachings of St. Augustine. He emphasized that the "Temptation" of Christ

represents the supreme moral trial of him who is recognized as the world's greatest ethical teacher and the most perfect character of history, of whom it is written he "was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin" (p. 3).

Painter considered the Gospel story to be a symbolic one and wrote further:

Christ was led up into the wilderness by the promptings of his own mind, not to be tempted of the devil in a. literal sense -- for there is no such devil to have

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tempted him, -- but, on the contrary, to test and prove himself by the possible conflict of good and evil as they aroused the impulses of his free moral nature. There was no devil there in the wilderness which spake with Christ, and led him from place to place; there was only his inner consciousness in conflict with itself, struggling for harmony and peace (p. 197).

Painter believed that it is reasonable to suppose that Christ underwent some temptations as it is recorded. However, he said, "it is evident that the writers of the Gospels have taken his (Jesus') subjective experience and objectified and idealized it" (p.281).

Painter classified the temptations as the "Temptation of selfishness," and the "Temptation of sovereignty." Speaking of the first temptation, Painter pointed out its material meaning common to all men:

All possible temptations in connection with bodily functions, however, are embraced in the sentient nature of man, and accordingly may be classified as temptations of sensuousness. When, therefore, Christ, being anhungered, was tempted to turn stones into bread, his impulse was an appeal of the sensuous nature, the same as with all men.

     Coming then, to the first temptation of Christ, we observe the idealized form and the universal significance of sentient temptation (p. 211).

Bread is the symbol of physical need, but the consummation of man's life is in his spiritual nature. Therefore, as Painter said:

The temptation of Christ was a struggle within his soul to preserve his spiritual integrity. His triumph was mastery of himself. And when men subject themselves to this inner law of life no outer temptation can overcome them (p. 225).

Painter saw the second temptation as based on men's impulses to pride, vanity, and inordinate self-glorification:

The unreasonable conceit of one's superiority in any distinction is usually accompanied with correspondingly contemptuous feelings towards others. Such impulses, since they all center in the estimate we give to the self, are best embodied in the notion of selfishness, which by some has been thought to be the epitome of all sins (p. 243).

Speaking of the third temptation, which he designated as one of sovereignty, Painter indicated that it surpasses all others -- "no greater temptation than this is even conceivable" (p. 276). Aspiration to dominance over others "blinds men to evil consequences, and impels them to sin and crime" (p. 293).

At the end of his analysis of the philosophy of the tempta-

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tions Painter emphasized its supreme ethical value which "Christ put before us in the incomparable metaphor of the final judgment." Concluding his study, he wrote:

The triumph of Christ over temptation exemplifies the good-will enthroned. His exaltation of spirit on the high mountain was the resultant glory of his moral triumph. It stands as the ideal for our lives, and points the only way to rest of soul. Having been victorious himself, it was reserved for Christ to also pronounce the universal encomium of all who have faught the good fight of faith and come to life triumphant (p. 332).

While Painter believed that "Christ went apart into the wilderness for the specific purpose of trying and proving himself, for self examination, for communion with God, and for reflection on his destiny," (pp. 108-109), other commentators still introduced in their description of Jesus' life the colorful scene of the meeting with the metaphoric and evasive figure of Evil.

The famous French religious writer Frangois Mauriac wrote that Jesus' aim was to conquer mankind by saving it from an enemy. This enemy is not the ones usually named -- Pharisees, priests, Roman soldiers, and so forth; instead, it is the spirit of evil, known by various names. Jesus knows him, but his enemy still does not know Him:

Quand il pense à ses ennemis, Jésus n'imagine pas les pharisiens, les princes des prêtres, les soldats que le frapperont au visage... Osons regarder en face cette vérité: il connaît son adversaire. Son adversaire a plusieurs noms dans toutes les langues. Jésus est la lumière venue dans un monde livrée a la puissance des ténèbres. Le démon est le maître apparent de l'univers, en cette quinzième année du gouvernement de Tibère. II invente pour César, a Capri, ces immondes jeux que rapporte Suètone. Il se sert des dieux pour corrompre les hommes, il se substitue aux dieux, il divinise le crime, il est le roi du monde. (26)

The demon is unable to seduce Jesus, "simplement, il rôde autour de l'âme la plus pure et la plus sainte dont il ait jamais risqué l'approche."

Mauriac mentions very briefly Jesus' sojourn in the wilderness saying that after the baptism "Le Fils de l'homme se retire alors dans la solitude où le démon rôde et harcèle cet inconnu redoutable" (p. 48).

Now we shall go back chronologically and examine the views of Vladimir S. Soloviev regarding the story of the temptations. It is important to note Dostoevsky's friendship with the young theologian-philosopher Vladimir S. Soloviev at the time he was writing The Brothers Karamazov.

In the spring of 1878 Dostoevsky attended a few of Soloviev 's lectures on God-manhood and frequently met the young

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philosopher in the salon of the Countess Sophia Tolstaia, widow of the poet Alexei Tolstoi.

The sudden and tragic death of Dostoevsky's little son Alesha on May 16, 1878 was a cruel blow to his parents. Dostoevsky's wife, Anna Grigorievna, strongly feared that the death of their son would have a fatal effect on Dostoevsky's health, which was already faltering. In her efforts to alleviate the situation, she turned to their young friend, Vladimir Soloviev. She wrote in her memoirs:

In order somewhat to comfort F. M. and to distract him from melancholy thoughts, I asked VI. S. Solovyov, who was visiting us in those days of our sorrow, to persuade F. M. to go with him to Optina Pustyn, where Solovyov was preparing to go that summer. (27)

At the end of June, 1878 Dostoevsky left with Soloviev for Optina Pustyn to see the Elder Amvrosii. It is evident that both men influenced each other to a certain extent; this fact has been pointed out by a number of scholars.

Long before Dostoevsky had befriended Soloviev, he was interested in the meaning of the Gospel story of the Temptations from a contemporary viewpoint. In his letter of June 7, 1876 to Vasilii A. Alekseev, a musician, Dostoevsky explained what he meant, when he referred in the entry in his Diary of a Writer, May 1876, in Pisareva's suicide to the Gospel passage concerning the first Temptation in the wilderness. Dostoevsky writes in this letter:

In the temptation of the devil, three colossal world ideas have merged, and here 18 centuries have passed, but there are no ideas more difficult, i.e., more trying, than these and even now no one can resolve them. (28)

Dostoevsky explains that "the stones and bread" symbolize the present-day social question, i.e., the environment. Dostoevsky extends his interpretation of the devil's first temptation, indicating that the devil regarded men as striving only for food and material goods: "You are the Son of God -- therefore You can do everything. Here are stones --you see how many. You have only to command and the stones will be turned into bread." Dostoevsky comments that "the devil's idea could only apply to man-brute; Christ, however, knew that by bread alone one could not keep man alive." Hence, three years before the appearance of the novel The Brothers Karamazov, the idea of the Grand Inquisitor was already formed. Dostoevsky emphasized that man cannot exist without spiritual life.

In his lectures on Godmanhood, (čtenia o Bogočelovečestve), especially in lectures eleven and twelve, Soloviev interpreted the temptations in accordance with his idea of the interaction of the Divine and the material.

According to his theory of the incarnation of the divine Logos in the person of Jesus Christ, Soloviev said:

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In the sphere of the eternal divine being, Christ is the eternal spiritual center of the universal organism. But since this organism, or the universal humanity, falling into the stream of phenomena becomes subjected to the law of external being, and must through labor and suffering restore in time that which was lost by it in eternity, i.e., its internal unity with God and nature -- then Christ also, as the active principle of that unity, for the real restoration of it has to descend into the same stream of phenomena, has to be subjected to the same law of external being, and from the center of eternity, become the center of history, appearing at a certain moment of it (namely), "in the fullness of time." (29)

Soloviev believed that the evil, "spirit of discord and enmity," was eternally powerless against God. But, at the beginning of time evil had overpowered man. In the middle of time, Soloviev said, evil "had to be overpowered by the Son of God and the Son of man." And this is the essential meaning of incarnation. For Soloviev

man is a spiritual union of Divinity with material nature; and that presupposes in man three constituent elements: the divine, the material, and that which binds both together, the properly human. The conjunction of these three elements is what really forms the actual man, and the properly-human element is the mind (ratio), i.e. the relationship of the two others (p. 212).

Hence, man's life should consist in an active coordination of the natural element with the divine, or in a free subjection of the natural to the divine. Soloviev emphasized that "such relationship forms the spiritual man" (ibid.). The divine beginning in man can triumph through an inner self-limitation by an act of free will.

Soloviev explained the possibility of the temptation of evil, as told in the Gospel, by the fact that Christ's divine-human personality represents a dual consciousness: the consciousness of the limits of natural existence, and the consciousness of its divine essence and power. Therefore, "experiencing the limitations of a natural being, the Godman may be subjected to the temptation to make His divine power a means for the aims which develop as a result of those limitations" (p. 215).

We will give below the complete quotation from Soloviev's interpretation of the three temptations.

First, to a being subjected to the conditions of material existence is presented the temptation to make material welfare the goal, and his divine power, the means for attaining it: "if thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made into bread." Here the divine nature -- "if thou be the Son of God" -- and the manifestation of that nature, the word "command," are to serve as means for the satisfaction of a material

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need. Christ in answer to this temptation asserts that the Word of God is not an instrument of material life, but itself is the source of true life for man: "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." Having overcome this temptation of the flesh, the Son of Man receives authority over all flesh. Second, to the God-man, free from the material motives, is presented a new temptation -- to make His divine power an instrument for the self-assertion of His human personality, to fall into the sin of the intellect — that of pride: "if thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." This act ("cast thyself down") would be a proud call of man to God, a temptation of God by man, and Christ answers: "it is written again, Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God." Having conquered the sin of the mind, the Son of Man receives authority over the minds (pp. 215-216).

The third temptation is the strongest one:

The enslavement of the flesh and the pride of the mind have been removed: the human will finds itself now on a high moral level, is conscious of being higher than the rest of creation; in the name of this moral height, man can wish for the mastery over the world in order to lead the latter to perfection; but the world lieth in sin and will not voluntarily submit to moral superiority (p. 216).

But to use the divine power to force the world into subjection, would mean to use coercion and evil. Hence, Christ denied any agreement with the evil which reigns in the world and said to the Tempter "Get thee hence, Satan." Soloviev pointed out that having overcome the temptation of evil beginning, Christ subjected and coordinated his human will with the divine will, "deifying his manhood after the inhumanization of his Divinity" (p. 217).

It is evident that Soloviev's interpretation of the Gospel story was close to Dostoevsky's own views and might have contributed to the ethical philosophy of Dostoevsky's last novel.

PART II

Now after a brief survey of a few pertinent interpretations of the Gospel story of the Temptations, we may return to Dostoevsky's treatment of this subject in his novel.

Geir Kjetsaa has noted in his study of Dostoevsky's copy of the New Testament that not one of the passages in St. Matthew or St. Luke concerning the Temptations was marked by Dostoevsky. However, Kjetsaa remarked that

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Nevertheless we should not place too much emphasis on what Dostoevsky omitted to mark. The fact that he often read his New Testament at random suggests that for him all the verses in the book had great significance. In his works he often used numerous quotations from the Bible which are not marked in his copy of the New Testament, Examples of this are the commandment to love our neighbour as we love ourselves (Matt., XXII, 39) at the end of The Dream of a Ridiculous Man and the saying that he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword (Matt., XXVI, 52) in The Brothers Karamazov (XIV, 288). (30)

Kjetsaa also remarked that while there are only two passages from St. Mark's Gospel marked by Dostoevsky in the margins, there are 16 marked passages in the Revelation of St. John the Divine. (31)

Professor Roger L. Cox has offered a most penetrating explanation of the view of the Grand Inguisitor, that "false prophet," by comparing the Inquisitor's statements to the Book of Revelations. Cox also showed that by accusing Jesus of having rejected the fundamental powers capable of responding to human needs -- miracle, mystery and authority --the Inquisitor distorted the meaning of these words. Cox wrote:

As a matter of fact, the Inquisitor reverses the real situation: he is the one who rejects miracle, mystery and authority, and proposes instead to meet man's needs by magic, mystification and tyranny. He does his best (which is very good indeed) to conceal from both himself and his listener precisely what he is doing. But Christ is not deceived. (32)

Cox's analysis persuasively demonstrates that the inquisitor 's arguments had been already answered by the text of the novel and the meaning of the entire book.

The three temptations as described by St. Matthew became symbols for moral tests of individuals at decisive moments in their lives.

Dostoevsky placed the scene of Jesus' coming incognito to sixteenth century Seville, Spain, "in the most terrible time of the Inquisition." Ivan explained to Alesha at length why he had chosen this peculiar place and time, for "at the time ... it was customary in poetry to bring down heavenly powers on earth." (33) (Vol. 14, pp. 225-226.) Ivan's Grand Inquisitor, by reducing the Gospel Temptations to human terms, showed, as George Stephan Painter has said, how much of "pleasure, pride and power are involved in Temptations of sensuous satisfaction, selfish gratification and sovereign ambition." (34)

The story of the three Karamazov brothers illustrates Dostoevsky's implication of the profound moral and ethical multi-meanings of the temptations. Dostoevsky emphasized that the most important aspect of the biblical story was Christ's

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freedom of conscience and the divine firmness of his faith and trust in God.

In the following discussion of the events and facts which motivated the behavior and acts of the three brothers we will analyze them against the background of the three temptations as expounded in the Gospels.

We will begin with the youngest brother, the 20-year old Alesha, whose temptations were of a short duration in the course of the novel, and are clearly and persuasively described by the narrator.

A few of Ivan's acts and statements are connected with Alesha's views and activities. Ivan behaves towards Alesha as a tempter. Therefore, the analysis of the attitude of the second brother, 23-year old Ivan, will follow.

Finally, the thorny, winding road full of temptations which the elder brother, the 27-year old Dmitry, had to follow will be examined at the end of the present study.

A. Alesha

Alesha, the "gentle, quiet boy" ("tikhii mal'čik"), the "angel," in the words of his sinful father Fedor Karamazov, as well as of his spiritual father, the saintly Elder Zosima, seems, in the first pages of the novel, to be immune to all temptation. The narrator reiterates that Alesha had chosen the monastery because he was honest and longed for truth: the monastery offered him the only acceptable path -- "an ideal escape for his soul from darkness to light." (35) Alesha's direct and righteous path in life also seemed assured by the loving guidance of the Elder Zosima. Alesha adored Zosima, saw in him the earthly incarnation of Truth, the mystery of a moral regeneration and spiritual renewal of man.

Paradoxically, Alesha's love and faith in Zosima will engender crucial temptations and cause the most serious moral and religious crisis in his life. Like the peasant woman, Alesha considered Elder Zosima to be a saint, and believed that therefore, according to the lives of the Saints, his death would bring "extraordinary glory" to the monastery.

Sensing that death was near, Elder Zosima sent Alesha into the world and predicted that it would take him a long time to find his way; but he blessed the young novice because he never doubted him, saying, "Christ is with you. Do not abandon Him and He will not abandon you." (Vol. 14, p. 72) Alesha did not expect to be sent out of the monastery; after learning of Zosima's decision, Alesha experienced a feeling of abandonment and unbearable anguish. But the next day, Zosima's final teaching of every man's responsibility to all men for everyone and everything gave Alesha a new moral strength.

In the world outside the monastery, Alesha was immediately

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exposed to the passionate confession of Dmitry's ardent heart and to his mystical ecstasy; he witnessed Dmitry's violence against his father; Alesha was present at the heartrending scenes of the three "lacerations" ("Nadryv v gostinoi," "nadryv v izbe," and "nadryv na čistom vozdukhe"), and found evil and hatred among children. And finally, he observed the provocative rebellion of his brother Ivan and heard Ivan's "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor."

Thus, Alesha's spiritual tests began immediately after the Karamazov family gathering at the Elder Zosima's. The strength of Alesha's faith was being tested as was the strength of Jesus in the desert. Ivan used this episode from the Gospel to support his theory. Alesha was thus exposed to temptations, but the sequence in which he was exposed is the reverse of that found in St. Matthew's Gospel. At the meeting in the tavern, Alesha was exposed to the third temptation; Ivan tried to seduce Alesha and to compel his brother to follow him in his derision and refutation of the world as God's creation.

Of all the "tavern" scenes found in Dostoevsky's works, the climactic one is that found in the last novel. In contrast to the assembly, which took place in Elder Zosima's cell at the beginning of the novel, in the tavern we find only two persons, whose opposing ethical and religious attitudes and views bring them to an explosive confrontation. (36)

The conversation, which soon becomes a virtual monologue by Ivan, revolves around the truly "eternal problems" of mankind's existence. Ivan, an alienated and haughty person, is still an enigma, a "riddle" for Alesha. This unexpected meeting surprises Alesha and makes him happy -- he sincerely believes that Ivan wants to make friends with him. Indeed, Ivan confirms that he wants to know his younger brother; he also wants Alesha to know him, Ivan. However, Ivan's subsequent remark is very ambiguous: he says he wants them to become close "and then to say goodbye (Da s tem i prostit'sia) and to separate, perhaps forever" (Vol. 14, p. 209).

The ambiguities multiply; almost all of Ivan's statements have a hidden, opposing meaning, a subtext which proves Ivan's two-mindedness and his ambivalent psyche. Ivan begins his intellectual and psychological game by winning Alesha's confidence; he makes him a confession. It is almost a mock confession -- it does not aim at repentance or regret. Ivan challenges Alesha, trying to destroy his convictions and to force him to accept Ivan's own views. Ivan tests the strength of Alesha's faith, induces doubts in his heart and imposes his stronger will upon the young novice. This ambiguous, treacherous game reveals itself in the provocative question with which he ends many of his statements: "Is it not so? Isn't it?"

Sometimes Alesha has the impression that Ivan is laughing at him. He asks Ivan if this is so, and if Ivan was "joking" when he began to speak of God's existence and immortality, because Ivan has already told him a day earlier that when he denied God's existence in response to the old Karamazov's

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question in his drawing-room, Ivan was only joking and teasing Alesha (Vol. 14, p. 213; see also pp. 123-124).

Now Ivan creates before Alesha's eyes a horrible picture of the immeasurable cruelty of men who inflict pain and suffering on defenseless children, plunging innocent human beings into infinite despair. Horror, pity and the same despair fill Alesha's heart. Ivan even compels Alesha to pronounce a death sentence and is delighted when Alesha repeats after him that the monstrous general ought to be shot. Alesha becomes aware that Ivan is testing and tempting him and finally asks Ivan why he is trying him. (Dlia čego ty menia ispytuesh'?) (Vol. 14, p. 222.)

Ivan discloses his intention by saying, "I won't give you up to your Zosima" (Vol. 14, p. 222). He then recites his "poem." Ivan indeed plays the role of the devil's advocate here. In his search for supreme justice Ivan transcends the spiritual world accessible to the mind of man. He is still in search of an acceptable explanation for the domination of evil and injustice in the world; in the image of his Grand Inquisitor Ivan assumes the role of a supreme judge, a deified figure. While putting Christ on trial and refuting his teachings, the Inquisitor opposes to them his own views on mankind and its history, thus revealing his true satanic essence. Ivan needs a disciple in order to reassure himself that his own views are correct: he wants Alesha to support and worship him. Thus, all the elements of the third biblical temptation are present (Vol. 1-1, p. 240).

Alesha, inexperienced in philosophical debate but guided by his religious beliefs and the instructions he has received from the Elder Zosima, grasps the main ambiguity in the rhetoric of Ivan and the Inquisitor and exclaims: "Your poem is in praise of Jesus, not in blame of Him -- as you meant it to be" (Vol. 14, p. 237). Alesha also understands that Ivan's Inquisitor has distorted the text of the Gospel and the meaning of the three temptations, and therefore, Jesus' concept of freedom. Ivan realizes that he has failed to convert his brother and says regretfully, "I thought that going away I have you at least." He adds that nevertheless Alesha's rejection of the Inquisitor's theory will not change his own views: "I won't renounce the formula 'all is permitted'" (Vol. 14, p. 240) and, with sudden irritation, Ivan declares that this conversation will not be resumed. At the last moment, with a spontaneous gesture, Ivan sends Alesha back to his "Pater Seraphicus."

Alesha seems to have emerged victorious from this most dangerous test and to have escaped Ivan's satanic temptation. However, he is unhappy and very confused; his moral confusion is so intense that he even forgets his duties and commitments, even the promise he had made to the late Zosima to watch over his brother Dmitry.

But this was not the end of his plight, and the strength of Alesha's spirit will be submitted to other tests. The young novice was deeply shocked by Ivan's revelation of the vast amount of evil surrounding innocent human beings in everyday

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life. Alesha's dream was that one day, thanks to people like Elder Zosima, who, as Alesha believed, "carries in his heart the secret of renewal for all," "the true Kingdom of Christ will come," and "all men will be holy and love one another" (Vol. 14, p. 29).

His first active involvement with his family, and especially with his brothers, whom Elder Zosima had urged him to stay close to, shows Alesha that his dream of mutual love was but a remote ideal. While visiting his father the next day, after Dmitry's attack on the old man, Alesha realized that his father was "spiteful and angry"; his brother Dmitry "too must be spiteful and angry"; their hearts had grown hard again: and they had both made plans which would lead to a bad end. Ivan had already surprised and scared Alesha a few days before with his hostility toward both Dmitry and Fedor Pavlovič. When Alesha said that God should forbid the murder of their father, Ivan spitefully replied: "Why should he forbid it? One reptile will devour the other. And it will serve them both right, too" (Vol. 14, p. 129). And the next day, in the tavern, Ivan tempts Alesha by trying to compel him to betray Zosima's religious views on the world and men.

Soon after Ivan took leave of him, Alesha was subjected to his second temptation. He, like almost everybody in the monastery and the town, expected a miracle after Elder Zosima 's death. Father Paissy, who had left for a moment his place by the coffin, found Alesha sitting on the tombstone of a monk famous for his saintliness, and weeping bitterly. Father Paissy tried to comfort Alesha, saying that this was the greatest of the late Elder Zosima's days. Soon a most surprising confusion arose.

When instead of a miracle, signs of decomposition began to appear, Alesha experienced the greatest shock of his life. How could his teacher and spiritual guide, in whom he had placed all his hopes for salvation, deceive him so cruelly? The hysterical shouting of the fanatic Father Ferapont, who cried "Satan, go hence," while pretending to cast out devils from the late Elder's cell, added to the general embarrassment. Alesha did not resist this temptation; instead of going to church to the funeral service, he hurried away without answering Father Paissy, who asked him if he, too, had fallen into temptation, like those of little faith. "Alesha suddenly gave a wry smile, cast a strange, very strange look" at Father Paissy, and walked out of the monastery (Vol. 14, p. 305). However, Father Paissy, to whom Elder Zosima had entrusted Alesha, believed that his dear, gentle boy would come back.

The grief caused by the Elder's death and the disasters provoked by the quick appearance of the smell of corruption shook Alesha's confidence in righteousness and justice. The narrator, who at this point penetrates Alesha's mind, specifies that Alesha had not lost his faith in God, but was losing his belief in divine justice. His almost subconscious expectation of some miracle to be caused by the Elder's death was motivated by his wish to see his teacher justly glorified after the end of his earthly life. "It was jus-

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tice, justice he thirsted for, not simply miracles," the narrator adds (Vol. 14, p. 307).

Instead of the respect, love, and admiration that Elder Zosima's memory deserved, the signs of the premature decomposition of the body gave rise to spiteful remarks; the saintly monk was degraded and dishonored by the crowd. The question "Why did it happen?" tormented Alesha; he could not endure without bitterness and resentment the mockery of the sinful crowd that seemed so inferior to the righteous Elder. The narrator comments that Alesha "loved his God and believed in Him steadfastly, though he was suddenly murmuring against him" (Vol. 14, p. 307).

Alesha's despair and doubts were intensified by a tormenting memory of the conversation with Ivan in the tavern, which had made a strongly evil impression on Alesha's mind and troubled the purity of his heart. The power of the third temptation, to which Ivan had subjected him the day before, revived again: would Alesha finally accept the dominance of the Antichrist and join Ivan in his rejection of the world as God created it?

A chance encounter in the monastery's pine grove with the false seminarist Rakitin prompted Alesha's rebellion. Ra-kitin acts here as a satanic ghost, tempting Alesha and leading him into sin. Rakitin suddenly treats Alesha with derision and contempt. He mocks Alesha's expectation that the Elder's death could bring miracles. The cynical Rakitin understood Alesha's trouble, and in a very vulgar form, subjected him once again to the third temptation. St. Luke wrote in his Gospel: "When the devil had ended all the temptations, he departed from Him (Jesus) for a season (do vremeni)." (St. Luke 4:13) Thus, Rakitin seems to continue the testing done by Ivan, and tries to bring Alesha to deny God: "So now you are in a temper with your God, you are rebelling against Him" (Vol. 14, p. 308).

Alesha suddenly replies to the mockery with Ivan's words: "I am not rebelling against my God, I simply 'don't accept his world'" (ibid.). Rakitin has already triumphantly noticed the change in Alesha's face -- it has lost its usual mild, angelic expression, and his voice has become rough; he could shout now like "ordinary mortals." Rakitin, like many other people, was glad to see the downfall of the righteous and gloated over Alesha's fall "from saint to sinner." He hastens to catch the critical moment to degrade Alesha. He immediately begins very cynically to tempt Alesha with material goods and pleasures; instead of urging him to turn stones into bread, Rakitin takes from his pocket a large piece of sausage and gives it to the hungry Alesha, who even acquiesces to Rakitin's proposal to go to his place and drink vodka with him.

The success of this temptation prompts Rakitin to take Alesha to Grushen'ka to offer him another material pleasure. Rakitin is sure that Alesha too has a "Karamazov nature" and can be easily tempted by sensuality. When Rakitin brings

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Alesha to Grushen'ka, her behavior -- she climbs on Alesha's knees and embraces him to "cheer him up" while declaring that she loves him "with all her soul," — all these tricks are just what Rakitin wants to complete Alesha's "downfall."

This temptation is too ordinary and Grushen'ka's seductive manner too vulgar and so direct that even Rakitin calls her a "shameless woman." Alesha, however, feels a "new and strange sensation in his heart," and keeps Grushen'ka on his knee and lets her hold him in her arms. It is Grushen'ka herself, who, having learned from Rakitin about Elder Zosima's death, leaves Alesha and changes her attitude. She, who blames herself for being wicked and bad, now helps the young novice whom she was determined to seduce to overcome the temptation she had prepared for him. Grushen'ka repeats several times that she is a "horrid, violent creature" (nizkaia, neistovaia); she finally hysterically confesses to Alesha that, hurt and indignant over his apparent contempt for her, full of spite and anger, she wanted to ruin him (pogubit' i proglotit') by getting him in her clutches and jeering at him. Suddenly, touched to the heart by Alesha's grief at the Elder's death, Grushen'ka, a seducer sure of her irresistable charms and sensuous body, becomes a mere suffering, victimized woman reduced to tears.

Grushen'ka's inner struggle between her hatred and her desire to avenge the wrong done her by her former lover, the Polish officer, together with her self-pity and helpless despair prompt her to give Alesha her "little onion." Her admission that she sobbed and suffered in the dark of night, her self-castignation for cruelty in her money-lending affairs, and her evil designs revive Alesha's moral purity and his belief in the possibility of the moral regeneration of others. Alesha stops Rakitin's mockeries, saying:

I came here to find a wicked soul -- I felt drawn to evil because I was base and evil myself, and I have found a true sister, I have found a treasure -- a loving heart. She had pity on me just now ... (Vol. 14, p. 318).

And turning to Grushen'ka he adds: "...You have raised my soul from the depths."

Grushen'ka will need more life experience and testing to defeat the evil desires in her heart, but like Nastasia Filippovna who met Prince Myshkin at a crucial moment in her life, Grushen'ka meets Alesha at the most decisive moment of her life. Falling on her knees before him, Grushen'ka exclaims in tears:

I have been waiting all my life for someone like you, I knew that someone like you would come and forgive me. I believed that, nasty as I am, someone would really love me not only with a shameful love! ... (Vol. 14, p. 323).

While Grushen'ka's moral development and testing begin with this scene, Alesha's series of temptations conversely ends

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for the time being with his encounter with this young woman who intended to cause his "downfall." Instead, Alesha regains his purity of heart and firmness of faith.

An hour later, when Alesha returns to the cell of the late Elder, he no longer feels a tormenting anxiety. Through Father Paissy's reading of the miracle of Cana of Galilee (St. John, 2:1-11), Alesha perceives the voice of his venerated teacher. Elder Zosima, speaking to him of joy and happiness. Alesha now associates his recent experience with Grushen'ka and his joy at having successfully resisted evil temptations with Zosima's teaching and the Gospel text.

Alesha's moral regeneration and the regaining of his ethical wholeness are accomplished during a mystical half-dream. Brief moments spent in the garden, outside of the cell, facing the fathomless, starry heaven, reveal to Alesha the existence of a mystery of heaven and earth and fill his soul with ecstasy. He has the impression that "someone visited his soul in that hour."

Indeed, a miracle occurred here -- the miracle of resuscitation, in Alesha's mind, of the Elder's true image and the evidence of his spiritual immortality. This miracle of love and trust was due to Alesha's regained belief in the moral values taught to him by the Elder Zosima and his revived confidence in the Gospel.

The narrator comments: Alesha had knelt on the earth as a weak boy, "but he rose up a resolute champion" (Vol. 14, p. 328). His initiation into his chosen vocation was complete; now he was ready to face the vicissitudes of real life with its temptations and difficult choices and, within three days, he left the monastery.

Thus, after being subjected to the anxieties and dangers of the real world, Alesha reached a higher state of moral development accessible to a human being -- a natural readiness for self-abnegation in a spirit of love and divine compassion. The two basic elements -- man's material nature and his religious consciousness -- found an ideal union in the person of Alesha.

B. Ivan

According to the metaphysics of Vyacheslav Ivanov and his concept of demonology, Ivan Karamazov, Alesha's and Dmitry's "learned brother" and philosopher, is a typical Luciferian man:

The Lucifer in man is the principle of selfish aloofness, of proud independence, of wilful self-assertion and self-detachment from the Whole, of self-estrangement from the divine universal unity. (37)

Indeed, these very features are revealed in Ivan's philosophical attitude and his behavior in everyday life.

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Ivan is tragically divided between his rejection of the world order and his thirst for life. This psychological division causes his spiritual duplicity. Ivan, like several other of Dostoevsky's protagonists, faces anew the dilemma discussed by St. Augustine. Dostoevsky's views on freedom of choice and man's responsibility for his acts basically correspond to the teachings of St. Augustine. While discussing free will with Enodius, St. Augustine emphasized the responsibility which free will implies, since the cause of man's evil deeds is his free will (De libero arbitrio, Book I, 1. 35). (38) St. Augustine said that no one compels man to sin, he can choose freely: Man "is bound to resist an evil will as the enemy of his most precious good," (I, 13:27; II, 1.1, 2, 3; and III, 36-46). To do right, man has to free himself from his own evil thoughts and frequently also from the evil persuasion of others. St. Augustine also explained that man's mind becomes the slave of his passions through its own choice, and man's wisdom consists in the control of the human mind (I, 7.16-10.22). Ivan's superior mind is enslaved by his own controversial theory.

In metaphysical terms, Ivan morally is a prisoner of the Luciferian spirit in himself: he considers himself able to become "like God." To triumph over this seduction, "man must himself -- as V. Ivanov wrote, "find his other one to serve as his fulcrum." (39)

That can be done by the act of love and faith. However, Ivan does not possess enough moral strength to control his own mind and to free himself from Luciferian force.

Ivan breaks away from Christian beliefs and challenges the laws of Christian religion -- for him nothing is sacred in moral codes. A few of Ivan's specific features parallel the description given by Anton Szander LaVey, compiler of the modern "Satanic Bible." (New York: Avon Books, 1968). The long history of demonology as well as man's frequent belief in witchcraft and black magic motivated LaVey's statement that the Devil, according to him and his followers, was not a stereotyped fellow cloaked in a red cape, but rather the dark forces of man's nature. These dark forces have manifested themselves in Ivan Karamazov's views and theories and have been released in his passive and almost imperceptible acts.

Ivan isolates himself from other people upon whom he looks with contempt, and "confesses" to Alesha that he could not even understand "how one can love one's neighbor" (Vol. 14, p. 215). More than that, Ivan could not admit to another's suffering, and was sure another can never know how much he suffered, "because he is another and not I" (Vol. 14, p. 216). For Ivan indeed "L'enfer, c'est 1'autre." The satanists profess hatred, their principle is "give blow for blow, scorn for scorn." Ivan speaks frequently of his hatred -- he hates his father, his brother Dmitry, his half-brother, the lackey Smerdiakov, frequently Katerina Ivanovna and even Alesha. Ivan wants to dominate others; he is possessed by an overwhelming feeling of superiority over all other people, his sin is one of pride -- one of the seven deadly sins

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according to the Christian Church and ethics. Another of Ivan's satanic features is his moral sadism; he finds pleasure in lying, deceiving and confusing other people. He is a militant theomachist and, simultaneously, a "joker" and deceiver: one day he denies the existence of God to his father's question, while a day later, he tells Alesha that "perhaps too he accepts God." Scornfully he pretends, saying to Alesha that he believes "in the eternal harmony in which they say we shall one day be blended"; he believes in "the Word... which Itself is God and so on, and so on, to infinity." Ivan adds blasphemously: "There are all sorts of phrases for it...," and declares to the stunned Alesha: "...in the final result I don't accept this world of God's and although I know it exists, I don't accept it at all..." (Vol. 14, pp. 213-214). Ivan will play the same deceptive game with Katerina Ivanovna. The Elder Zosima is the only one who perceives Ivan's attraction to satanic falsehood after listening to Ivan's theories at the gathering in his cell. The Elder says that Ivan should be "most unhappy" because he did not believe himself in the immortality of his soul, nor in what he has written in his article on Church jurisdiction. The Elder also added that Ivan is "not altogether joking": that question is worrying his heart. The fact that Ivan still has not answered this basic question about virtue and immortality in his "great grief," for it clamors for an answer. The Elder says, concluding the dialogue, if that problem can not be decided in the affirmative, it will never be decided in the negative. And this is the real cause of Ivan's intellectual and moral suffering (Vol. 14, p. 65).

In the tavern Ivan plays the role of a satanic tempter. He succeeds in troubling the purity of Alesha's heart and sowing seeds of doubt in his brother's sincere beliefs. However, there is one important point at the very beginning of Ivan's otherwise persuasive argument which undermines the basis of his theory. By mentioning that on the eve of Jesus' appearance in Seville, the Grand Inquisitor had burnt "in a magnificent auto da fe" almost a hundred heretics in the presence of the king, the court, and the whole population of the city, Ivan exposes the true nature of the "love for mankind" which motivated the Inquisitor to "correct" the unlimited moral freedom Jesus had given men while rejecting the temptations of Satan (Vol. 14, ch. 5. See also PSS, Vol. 15, n. 588, quotation from Dostoevsky's notebook of 1881). This fact clearly demonstrates a complete lack of Christian morality and a distortion of Christian principles, as well as showing the satanic nature of the Inquisitor. The young Alesha, though unaccustomed to such casuistry, manages to see through this provocative deceit and distortion of the Gospel's essence.

His failure to convert Alesha does not cause Ivan to change his theory: "I won't renounce the formula 'all is. permitted"1 (Vol. 14, p. 240). He declares that he does not want to understand anything, but "is determined to stick to the facts." He refuses to reconsider or revise his views and persists in his thematic rebellion in an effort to prove his intellectual superiority.

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However, Ivan's spiritual dichotomy and his inability to make a decisive choice between two alternatives were revealed in one short but significant statement he made before displaying to Alesha the terrible facts of man's cruelty. At Alesha's request, Ivan explains why he does not accept the world as God's creation:

"To be sure I will, it's not a secret, that's what I've been leading up to. Dear little brother, I don't want to corrupt you or to turn you from your stronghold, perhaps I want to be healed by you." Ivan smiled suddenly quite like a little gentle child. Alyosha had never seen such a smile on his face before. (Vol. 14, p. 215.)

The subsequent conversation with Smerdiakov, which Ivan unwillingly starts, is a masterpiece of hidden dialectics and psychological interplay. Having parted from Alesha, Ivan is suddenly overcome by acute depression and unbearable anxiety. According to demonology, such anxiety is a sign of a diabolic presence. When Ivan sees Smerdiakov sitting on the bench, he believes that Smerdiakov is the cause of his moral nausea. "Ivan Fedorovich understood from the first glance that the lackey Smerdiakov was in his soul, and that it was this man that his soul loathed" (Vo. 14, p. 242). Though Ivan's repulsion and contempt are quite visible, Smerdiakov talks to him with assurance and soon begins to get the upper hand. His question of why Ivan has not gone to Čermašnia is accompanied by a malicious smile, as if he were saying: "Why I smile you must understand of yourself, if you are a clever man" (Vol. 14, p. 244). Both interlocutors are cynics, each is watching and testing the other in an attempt to penetrate his secret designs. Ivan still considers himself a bold and strong person, destined to be above all others. Smerdiakov starts an ambiguous, dangerous game and the roles played by the two interlocutors soon begin to change, little by little.

The next day Ivan indeed leaves the house of his father. His sudden remark addressed to Smerdiakov, "You see... I am going to Čermašnia," triggers the famous remark: "It's a true saying then, that 'it's always worth while speaking to a clever man'" (Vol. 14, p. 254), and the narrator adds that Smerdiakov answers "firmly, looking significantly at Ivan."

A few hours later, already on board the train to Moscow, Ivan is again overcome with acute anguish. Instead of feeling relief at having left all unpleasant things behind, Ivan feels a dark gloom in his heart such as he has never known before. A mystical, spiritual darkness seems to engulf him. Later in the text the constant reference to Smerdiakov's insistence that a "clever man" should understand the hidden subtext of the phrase Ivan heard when departing from old Karamazov's house characterizes all of the subsequent meetings and talks with Smerdiakov right up to the last crucial one.

Soon the proud, self-assured tempter Ivan Karamazov will become a tempted, unhappy man; Ivan will undergo a powerful.

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thrice-renewed temptation during his three conversations with Smerdiakov. Ivan's true ordeal -- his wandering in torments and suffering -- will take place during his three meetings with Smerdiakov upon his return from Moscow, after his father's murder. Ivan will be constantly tempted with the same satanic temptation -- the third, according to St. Matthew's Gospel; the rejection of Christian ethics and faith in favor of worship of false idols.

Ivan is hardly vulnerable to temptation by material pleasures. Even if the reader knows that Ivan is in love with Katerina Ivanovna, there are no love scenes between them in the novel. Only once, when Alesha visits her on the eve of Dmitry's trial, does Katerina use the familiar form of you (ty) when, in a highly excited state of mind, she asks Ivan if Dmitry is indeed the murderer. "It was you, you (ty, ty) who persuaded me that he murdered his father," she says angrily to Ivan (Vol. 15, p. 37). This familiar form of "you" surprises Alesha, for "he had not suspected such familiar intimacy between them." Nothing else reveals the existence of any real intimacy between Ivan and Katerina Ivanovna. Ivan seems so profoundly occupied by his philosophical ideas that the temptation of sensuousness has little importance for him. Besides, he has told Alesha that he is ready to break off altogether with Katerina Ivanovna.

It is the narrator who informs the reader that Ivan, upon his hasty return to Skotoprigonievsk five days after the murder of his father, visits Smerdiakov in the hospital, but then almost forgets that Smerdiakov exists. The reason is that Ivan has lied to Alesha in denying his love for Katerina Ivanovna; in fact, on his return from Moscow, Ivan "hopelessly abandoned himself to his mad and consuming passion" for her. It should be remembered that Ivan himself recognized the presence within himself of the "Karamazov's strength" of desires and dissoluteness (See Vol. 14, p. 240). However, his mad love was tinged with a strong element of hatred. As the traits of Ivan's character are selfishness, haughtiness and a feeling of superiority over others to the point of self-deification, he will now repeatedly undergo the temptation of sovereignty. (40) The most important question for him now is wether he will definitely reject Christian ethics and submit to Satan's power to serve an evil idea or cause, or listen to the feeble voice of his reviving conscience.

Ivan's first meeting with Smerdiakov is closely connected with their recent conversation at the gateway in front of Fedor Karamazov's house. Both Smerdiakov and Ivan frequently refer to this talk, which took place six days earlier.

Smerdiakov, still in the hospital, no longer hides behind pitiful complaints about Dmitry's threats to kill him. Now he explains to Ivan why he urged Ivan to go to Čermašnia and mocks Ivans alleged lack of perspicacity. As before, the two carriers of evil watch and confront each other, each trying to penetrate the other's thoughts and intentions. But now it is Smerdiakov who dominates the scene. His diabolic game of deception continues. He maliciously tests Ivan's claim to be

29

an extraordinary man. To Ivan's promise not to disclose at the trial that Smerdiakov could sham an epileptic fit, Smerdiakov replies with hidden mockery: "And if you don't speak of that, I shall say nothing of that conversation of ours at the gate" (Vol. 15, p. 47).

Smerdiakov repeatedly conveys the idea of their interdependence and solidarity in their concealed design to murder the old Karamazov. The words Smerdiakov spoke to Ivan when the latter was departing for Moscow -- "It is always worthwhile speaking to a clever man" -- resound again and again in Ivan's mind. Now Ivan experiences the same feeling of hatred toward everybody, the repulsion and self-loathing that tormented him during the last night spent in the house of his father, whose movements Ivan had watched from the top of the staircase. Later he realized that this spying was "infamous," "the basest action of his life" (Vol. 14, p. 251).

The second meeting with Smerdiakov, two weeks later, was prompted by Alesha's positive answer to Ivan's inquiry. Ivan had asked suddenly if Alesha thought that Ivan had desired his father's death when he said, after Dmitry's sudden intrusion into his father's house, that he just wished that "one reptile should devour another" (Vol. 14, p. 129). The struggle in Ivan's heart and mind intensified day by day.

In the Gospel stories of the temptations, the Devil begins tempting Jesus with the words: "If thou be the Son of God..." Romano Guardini has remarked in his book The Lord that the one who "recognized in Jesus his greatest enemy" began his temptation with the "provocativeness of the very first words 'If thou art the son of God...'" (41)

Indeed, the devil starts his first as well as the second temptation with the same provocative and blasphemous sentence: "If thou be the son of God, command that these stones be made bread..." and "If thou be the son of God, cast thyself down..." (Matthew 4:3 and 4:6; Luke 4:3 and 4:9).

Smerdiakov seems to echo the diabolic provocation in the wilderness. Again and again he says to Ivan mockingly "if you are a clever man"; (see Vol. 15, pp. 52, 54, 59, 61, 68). Finally, after his confession and declaration that Ivan was the real murderer, Smerdiakov says during their last encounter: "You were bold then: you said 'everything is permitted' and how frightened you are now" (Vol. 15, p. 61).

Smerdiakov wants Ivan to recognize that he, Ivan, has turned out to be a false prophet for Smerdiakov, and that it was Ivan who seduced Smerdiakov with his blasphemous theory. Smerdiakov has truly worshipped Ivan as a Superior Being, but now he treats his former idol, who is seized by fear and trembling, with contempt and continues to test him. Now it is a kind of reversed temptation: Smerdiakov wants Ivan to acknowledge that he, Ivan, like Dmitry, also desired his father's death and thus confirm his alliance with evil.

Ivan is exasperated by Smerdiakov's denigrating treatment and his insistence that he, the proud philosopher Ivan, was

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an accomplice, though only in thought and words, to his father's base and infamous murder. (42) Ivan's rage is sharply contrasted with Smerdiakov's assured and contemptuous pose. Smerdiakov refutes with striking casuistry all of Ivan's arguments, while insisting on the main point:

As for the murder, you couldn't have done that and didn't want to, but as for wanting someone else to do it, that was just what you did want. (Vol. 15, p. 52).

Ivan cannot stand the humiliation Smerdiakov subjects him to anymore. He is ready to succumb to another diabolic temptation: to vent his mad anger and despair by killing Smerdiakov.

Rushing out of Smerdiakov's shabby room, Ivan suddenly stops "as though he had been stabbed (pronzennyi):

Yes, I expected it then, that's true! I wanted the murder, I did want the murder! Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kill Smerdiakov! If I don't dare kill Smerdiakov now, life is not worth living! (Vol. 15, p. 54) (43)

Ivan succumbs to a reverse diabolic temptation: he finally agrees that he is not a self-deified proud "man-god":

If it's not Dmitry, but Smerdiakov who is the murderer, I share his guilt, for I put him up to it. Wether I did, I don't know yet. But if he is the murderer, and not Dmitry, then, of course, I am the murderer, too. (Ibid. )

With these revealing words Ivan rushes to Katerina Ivanov-na' s house. This is the statement that triggers the disclosure of the fatal "document" -- Dmitry's mad letter written to Katerina Ivanovna in the tavern, in a state of intoxication. Dmitry stated in the letter that in case he cannot obtain the three thousand rubles to return to Katerina Ivanovna, he will kill his father, who has robbed him of his lawful heritage.

For a month Ivan has felt at ease: for him Dmitry is now the murderer. Ivan's wounds are reopened by Alesha's words: "It was not you who killed father." (Ne ty ubil ottsa, ne ty!) (Vol. 15, p. 40)

Again, it is Alesha who prompts Ivan's third visit to Smerdiakov, the last and most crucial one. And more than that, Ivan wants to find out why Katerina Ivanovna has gone to see Smerdiakov. Thus, Ivan's ordeal and his temptations are far from over.

Smerdiakov has already shown himself to be an experienced casuist in the scene "The Controversy." (See Vol. 14, pp. 117-21.) Now, during all three talks with Ivan, Smerdiakov displays the same adroitness in manipulating the dialectics of hidden ambiguity in his statements. He is firmly in control of himself and of the situation; he even wonders how

31

unaware Ivan is of his allusions and wether he does not understand or whether he pretends not to understand the meaning of Smerdiakov's statements.

Now, at this third meeting, Smerdiakov looks at his former mentor and idol very calmly, with a scornful smile, his heart filled with a frenzied hatred for Ivan, who rushes in, trembling with violent anger and plagued by an obsessive thought: "I shall kill him (Smerdiakov) perhaps this time." (Vol. 15, p. 57.) This third visit only intensifies and prolongs Ivan's moral agony. Smerdiakov's isolated, overheated small room with no space to move anticipates the Sartrean description of hell in the play Huis clos. Victor Terras has also commented that "it is infernally hot at Smerdiakov's." (44)

Ivan's attitude sharply contrasts with Smerdiakov's calm, slow and condescending poise. Ivan is rude, anxious and nervous; he is unable to restrain his violent temper. On his way to Smerdiakov' s he pushes a drunken peasant down in the snow.

Smerdiakov now continues his diabolic scrutiny, looks at Ivan with haughtiness and repulsion; his idol, whom he used to see as a god, the man who "used to be so bold," reveals himself to be a coward, trembling with fear, a weak and wicked man, suffering in his troubled uncertainty.

Smerdiakov realized long ago that Ivan never looked at him as a human being worthy of any attention or respect. During Ivan's last visit with him, when Ivan had plenty of opportunity to see how cleverly and adroitly Smerdiakov had worked out and executed his plan of murdering the old Karamazov, Ivan said to him: "You are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought." Smerdiakov's answer reveals his deep psychological wound: "It was your pride that made you think I was a fool." (Vol. 15, p. 68.)

Smerdiakov treats Ivan with increasing sadism. The former lackey has already realized (as Victor Terras has pointed out), that Ivan's principle -- "everything is permitted" — does not always work out; there is still something left in the human heart or mind which Ivan had dismissed: maybe a conscience.

Finally, after reducing Ivan to a contemptible object, Smerdiakov stops playing his farce of non-understanding and forces Ivan to accept his satanic essence -- his readiness and desire to kill.

Are you still trying to throw it all on me, to my face? You murdered him; you are the real murderer, I was only your instrument, your faithful servant, and it was by following your words that I did it. (Vol. 15, p. 59.)

It is noteworthy that Ivan is so preoccupied with himself that he does not pay any attention to Smerdiakov's last words nor to his gestures. It is quite obvious that at the end of their conversation Smerdiakov has something important

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on his mind. Ivan is threatening to kill Smerdiakov, and he assures Smerdiakov that he has not yet killed him because Smerdiakov's evidence will be presented the next day at the trial. Smerdiakov looks at Ivan strangely and, without any trace of fear, challenges his former idol, saying: "Well, kill me. Kill me now." (Vol. 15, p. 68.)

Nor does Ivan wonder why Smerdiakov, who has just given him the whole bundle of money, asks him to show the notes again and bids Ivan farewell.

Ivan leaves with a feeling of relief. He has just made a decision -- to confess his guilt in court. The text of the novel informs the reader what is going on in Ivan's mind:

Something like joy was springing up in his heart. He was conscious of unbounded resolution; he would make an end of the wavering that had so tortured him of late. His determination was taken, "and now it will not be changed," he thought with relief. (Vol. 15, p. 68.)

This decision motivates Ivan's good deed: having stumbled against the half-frozen peasant whom he knocked down an hour ago, Ivan tries to revive the man. He brings him to the police station and pays his medical expenses in advance.

When Ivan finally reaches his house amidst a raging snowstorm he is suddenly inspired to go to the prosecutor at once and tell him everything. The next moment Ivan decides to postpone everything until tomorrow; and almost all his feelings change in an instant -- especially his soothing self-satisfaction.

As he enters his room, he feels something like a touch of ice on his heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of something agonising and revolting that was in that room now, at that moment, and had been there before. Sitting in his sofa, Ivan looks at another sofa that stands against the opposite wall. Suddenly, he sees somebody there: in a half-hallucinatory state, Ivan begins his self-trial.

All that has irritated and tormented Ivan during the past two months is finally externalized in the form of a devil who begins to deride and mock the "former bold man" (byvshyi smelyi čelovek), as Smerdiakov said.

The episode with Ivan's nightmare (Vol. 15, ch. 9, pp.69-85) -- the appearance of the devil who mocks Ivan, scoffs at him, and provokes his anger and irritation — is a most persuasive and impressive artistic visualization of the state of mind of a man close to the edge in a crisis situation. At the decisive moment of his life, when he must "justify himself to himself," as the narrator explains, the talk with the Devil, "a vulgar gentleman," even if only a hallucination, represents a striking artistic metaphor for the age-old struggle of man with himself and his own conscience.

It should be added that in the dramatization of The Brothers

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Karamazov done in Moscow in 1910, Ivan's dialogue with the Devil was reproduced on the stage of the Art Theater.

Ivan sitting on a sofa, spoke with two different vocal inflections; the light of a candle projected a huge shadow on the back wall, creating the impression that Ivan's interlocutor, his Devil, was actually present. Vasilii I. Kachalov, with unusual artistic talent, presented to the fascinated audience the profound tragedy of Ivan's objectivized thoughts. For about thirty minutes Kachalov held the audience under the magic spell of his special talent. He dramatized the tragedy of man's consciousness and double nature, the strife between belief and disbelief, and the endless dispute between man's admitted responsibility and the opposite view that "everything is allowed." (45)

At the end of this exhaustive temptation Ivan does not say to his Devil, "Get thee behind me, Satan" (St. Luke, 4:8), but persists in his reluctance to acknowledge that his theory was wrong, and continues to refuse to understand his error. Thus, Ivan remains in the Devil's clutches, though, by the very fact of hearing the Devil's arguments and mocking explanations, Ivan makes an effort to break through the vicious circle created by his own mind. Unfortunately, his efforts merely augment his irritation and despair and lay the groundwork for the catastrophe of the following day.

Ivan's nightmarish Devil was right in saying it was not Ivan who "caught" him, but vice versa: "Listen," said the Devil, "It was I who caught you, not you me..." The Devil confirms that he "has done nothing else" but tempt people, especially holy men, and mockingly reveals the meaning of his temptation of Ivan: "I lead you to belief and disbelief by turns, and I have my motive in it..." Then the Devil calmly and logically develops Ivan's own theory of the man-god, a theory engendered by Ivan's titanic pride:

...What's more, even if this period never comes to pass, since there is anyway no God and no immortality, the new man may well become the man-god, even if he is the only one in the whole world, and promoted to his new position, he may lightheartedly overstep all the barriers of the old morality of the old slave-man, if necessary. There is no law for God. Where God stands, the place is holy. Where I stand will be at once the foremost place... "All things are lawful" and that's the end of it! (Vol. 15, p. 84.)

Ivan's nightmarish dialogue with the Devil is interrupted by Alesha's knocking at the window frame. Alesha brings him shattering news: "An hour ago Smerdiakov hanged himself." (Vol. 15, p. 85).

It is obvious that by this suicide Smerdiakov has taken vengeance on all the Karamazovs. Smerdiakov's behavior since the arrival of the two elder sons of Fedor Pavlovich at Skotoprigonievsk, has been motivated by his hatred of the Karamazov family and by his ambition. He knew that no one but the old Karamazov could be his father. Therefore, the

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three young Karamazovs were his brothers. However, not one of them ever treated him as an equal. Smerdiakov hated them all, except for Ivan. He tried desparately to attract Ivan's attention, as is especially visible in the scene "The Controversy. "

Smerdiakov's disappointment in Ivan, his idol, and in his theory engendered an acute need for revenge. Aware of the failure of Ivan's famous principle "Everything is permitted," Smerdiakov decided to use it against Ivan and the whole Karamazov family by employing the only weapon at his disposal. By putting an end to his life, Smerdiakov deprived the authorities of his valuable deposition at the trial. He did not confess his crime: his short suicide note, simple as it is, contains a diabolic trick. The note reads: "I destroy my life of my own will and desire not to blame anyone."

In fact, Smerdiakov confirms the judge's and the jury's assumption that the murder was committed by Dmitry. On the other hand, by his failure to mention Ivan's part in their relationship, Smerdiakov deprives Ivan's testimony of any credibility. Thus he condemns Ivan to perpetual moral torment caused by the consciousness of his unrelieved guilt.

Though Ivan's Devil is only jeering at him when he says Ivan will perform an "act of heroic virtue," without believing in virtue, and will confess publicly that it was he, Ivan, the superior man, who is the real murderer, Ivan does indeed appear at the trial on the day following his nightmare. However, Ivan's staggering confession to the court is not a manifestation of his repentance or even of his regret; it is a challenge confirming his contempt of other people. Ivan acts as the Devil had predicted and as Ivan had shouted to Alesha, while insisting that he hated everybody: "Oh, tomorrow I'll go, stand before them and spit in their faces." (Vol. 15, p. 88.)

After his confession, Ivan suddenly declares that his "witness," who had seen Smerdiakov handing Ivan the three thousand rubles, was the "one with a tail" -- "a paltry miserable devil." This outburst due to Ivan's mental confusion prompts the bailiffs to remove him from the courtroom. Victor Terras explains Ivan's screaming and yelling ("Ivan zavopil neistovym voplem") as "clearly biblical," "bringing to mind the screams of the possessed healed by Jesus and the apostles" (e.g., Luke 8:28, Acts 8:7). (46)

This is the last time the reader sees Ivan. The author leaves us in suspense: Ivan's further fate remains unknown. He might die; the famous doctor from Moscow leaves "refusing to give an opinion as to the probable end of the illness of Ivan," who, unconscious and in a high fever, is left in the care of Katerina Ivanovna and two local doctors. If Ivan survives, then " that hero of honor and principle," in the words of Katerina Ivanovna, this person suffering from the torments of decision-making, "an earnest conscience," according to Alesha, will undergo at least one more, perhaps a final, temptation. It is again Alesha who predicts one possible outcome of Ivan's anxiety. Alesha still believes that

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Ivan will be able to overcome his incapacity to choose between the atheistic and the Christian ethical systems and that he will finally put an end to the dramatic struggle of the sacred and profane in his mind and understand his dilemma, clearly described by the Apostle Paul in the First Epistle to the Corinthians:

Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils; ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils. (10:21)

While watching over Ivan, who falls asleep after telling Alesha of his dialogue with his Devil, Alesha thinks Ivan "will either rise up on the light of truth, or ... he will perish in hate, avenging on himself and on everyone his having served a cause he does not believe in." (Vol. 15, p. 89.)

Chapter C. Dmitry of the present article will be published in Dostoevsky Studies no. 9.

NOTES

1. F. M. Dostoevskii. Brat'ia Karamazovy. Polnoe sobranie soohinenii v tridsati tomakh. Leningrad: "Nauka". Vol. 14 and 15, 1976. (Later referred to as PSS) V. 14, p. 224. Quotations from this edition will be identified within the text of this article by volume and page.
2. See Dostoevsky's letters to: (1) N. A. Liubimov, May 10, and June 11, 1879 (from Staraia Russia), and (2) K. P. Pobedonostsev, May 19, 1879, Staraia Russia. In Dostoevskii, Pis'ma, V. IV, Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1959, 1959. pp.- (1) 52- 53 and 58-59; (2) pp. 56-57.
3. F. M. Dostoevsky. "Starye liudi" (Old People). Dnevnik pisatelia, PSS, V. 21, p. 12.
4. This article was presented partially as an oral report to the Vlth International Dostoevsky Symposium, in Nottingham. It followed the paper delivered by Professor Malcolm V. Jones, "The Suppression of the Second Temptation." Professor Jones' paper has been published as an article, "The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor: The Suppression of the Second Temptation and Dialogue with God," in Dostoevsky Studies, Vol. 7, 1986, pp. 123-34. I fully support many points in Professor Jones' article and it is evident that some points in my treatment of the subject coincide with those of Professor Jones. Though the purpose of my work is different, I was happy to find certain similarities between my interpretation of the reading of the Biblical text of Ivan's Grand inquisitor and the views of Professor Jones.
   
   It is very important to note in Professor Jones' remark that
    

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    the Grand Inquisitor suppressed Jesus' replies to Satan, and the following statement: In this respect the partial suppression of the Second Temptation (in which Jesus is tempted to leap from the pinnacle of the Temple) is of particular importance and follows logically, because it is the Second Temptation which lays most emphasis on an emotional relationship with God. In the view of Satan in the Gospel narrative, the success of the first temptation is to be guaranteed by Jesus' power as a wonder-worker; the success of the third is to be guaranteed by Satan himself. The success of the second, however, depends on God's own intervention to save his misguided son. (Dostoevsky Studies, p. 126).
5. Edward Wasiolek, Dostoevsky: The Major Fiction. Cambridge, Mass: The M.I.T. Press, 1964. pp. 167 and 170.
6. Voltaire. "Examen Important de Milord Bolingbroke, ou le Tombeau du Fanatisme" (écrit sur la fin de 1736). Oeuvres Complètes. Paris: Gamier Frères, 1879, Vol. XXVI, Mélanges V. pp. 195-300.
7. Edward Taylor. The Harmony of the Gospels. Ed. by Thomas M. and Virginia L. Davis. New York: Delmar (Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints), 1983. Vol. II, p. 227. Further quotations from this volume are identified within the text by page.
8. Albert Schweitzer. The Quest of the Historical Jesus (A Critical Study of Its Progress from Reimarus to Wrede.) New York: The Macmillan Company, 1950. p. 4.
9. Andrei Bogoliubov. Syn Čelovečeskii. Bruxelles: FoyerOriental Chretien, 1968. p. 8.
10. Friedrich Schleiermacher. Das Leben Jesu. Vorlesungen an der Universität zu Berlin im Jahr 1832. Ed. by K. A. Rutenik in 1864. Translated from German by S. Maclean Gilmour as The Life of Jesus, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975. p. 111.
11. Ibid., p. 146.
12. Ibid., p. 152.
13. Ibid. , p. 153. Taking into consideration the importance of Schleiermacher's opinion, we give below the complete quotation of this passage:
    (1) In light of all that Christ elsewhere had told them of the way they would fare, an unlimited trust in God with respect to their external needs, such as is set forth in the first temptation, was indispensable to them. The meaning of the saying, Man does not live by bread alone, etc., is clearly that, if ordinary ways do not suffice, God knows how to use extraordinary means to achieve his ultimate purpose. In accordance with this rule the disciples were to have a firm trust in God. As long as their ministry would be necessary, God
     

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     would know how to support them, whether by ordinary or by extraordinary means. (2) It was equally necessary, to the extent that they shared Christ's wonderworking powers, that they should abstain from making any display of what was entrusted to them and never to use such gifts in order to obtain a vain renown. They were to regard every such inclination as proceeding from a principle opposed to Christianity. (3) What has been said above applies also to the last temptation. The possibility of exercising civil power and lordship was remote so far as the disciples were concerned, but the temptation to exercise a personal authority and a personal, spiritual lordship was ever present, and as Christ warned them elsewhere against it, he did so also in this instance in terms of a symbolic warning. Thus the individual temptations take on a significance, but not if they are related to Christ himself. All that makes it impossible to understand the story if it is regarded as history loses its difficulty if the account is viewed as a parable, for in a parable such presuppositions were permitted in order to give expression to the thought (p. 153).
14. G. W. F. Hegel. "The Life of Jesus" in Three Essays,1793-1795 (The Tubingen Essay, Berne Fragments, The Life of Jesus). Edited and translated with introduction and Notes by Peter Fuss and John Dobbins. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984, p. 106.
15. Ernest Renan. Vie de Jésus. Paris: Calmann Lévy (1-er volume de Histoire des Origines du Christianisme), n.d. (13^e edition; first published in 1863.) Chap. VII, pp. 117- 118. Original French text says:
    Jusqu'à l'arrestation de Jean, que nous plaçons par approximation dans l'eté de l'an 29, Jésus ne quitta pas les environs de la mer Morte et de Jourdain. Le séjour au désert de Judée était généralement considéré comme une sorte de "retraite" avant les actes publics. Jésus s'y soumit à l'exemple de ses devanciers et passa quarante jours sans autre compagnie que les bêtes sauvages, pratiquant un jeûne rigoureux. L'imagination des disciples s'exerça beaucoup sur ce séjour. Le désert était, dans les croyances populaires, la demeure des démons. Il existe au monde peu de régions plus desolées, plus abandonnées de Dieu, plus fermées à la vie que la pente rocailleuse qui forme le bord occidental de la mer Morte. On crut que, pendant le temps qu'il passa dans cet affreux pays, il avait traversé de terribles épreuves, que Satan l'avait effrayé de ses illusions ou bercé de séduisantes promesses, qu'ensuite les anges, pour le récomposer de sa victoire, étaient venus le servir.
    Translated into English as The Life of Jesus, Introduction by John Haynes Holmes. New York: Carlton House, 1927, ch. VII, p. 148.
16. Ibid. French text: pp. 118-119; English text: p. 149.

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17. Ibid. French text: pp. 120-121; English text: p. 150.
18. Ibid. French text: p. 97; English text: p. 134.
19. F. M. Dostoevski!. Dnevnik pisatelia, 1873, PSS, v. 21,p. 11, n. 383, and pp. 132-133, n. 457.
20. Victor Terras. A Karamazov Companion: Commentary on the Genesis, Language, and Style of Dostoevsky 's Novel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1981. p. 17.
21. David Friedrich Strauss. Das Leben Jesu (1st edition 1835) The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, translated by George Eliot, edited by Peter C. Hudson. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972. p. 28.
22. Ibid., pp. 255-256.
23. Ibid., p. 257.
24. Ibid. , p. 259. It should be noted that the discovery in 1947, at the shore of the Dead Sea of the Kumran manuscripts showed the invalidity of reducing the texts of the Evangelists to a mere myth.
25. George Stephan Painter. The Philosophy of Christ's Temptations: A Study in Interpretation. Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1914. p. 14. Further quotations will be identified within the text by page.
26. Francois Mauriac. Vie de Jésus. Paris: Flammarion, 1936.p. 45.
27. A. G. Dostoevskaia, Vospominania. Moscow: Khud. Literatura, 1981, p. 327.
28. Letter to V.A. Alekseev. June 7, 1876. PSS, v. 29-11,pp. 84-85 and n. 248-251. See also Georgii M. Fridlender's comments in PSS, v. 15, pp. 407-409.
29. Vladimir Soloviev. "Lectures Concerning Godmanhood." Translated and with an Introduction by Peter P. Zouboff in Godmanhood as the Main Idea of the Philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev. Poughkeepsie, NY: Harmon Printing Hous, 1944, p. 210. Further identified within the text by page. Russian text: "Čtenia o Bogočelovečestve," (1877-1881) Čtenie 11-oe i 12-oe, in sobranie sočinenii V. S. Solovieva. S. Peterburg, 1897-1900, Tom III, pp. 163-181. (Quotations correspond to Russian text: 163, 166, 169, 170.)
30. Geir Kjetsaa. Dostoevsky and His New Testament. Oslo: Solum Forlag AS, Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press Inc., 1984. p. 7.
31. Ibid., p. 7.
32. Roger L, Cox. "The Grand Inquisitor" in Between Earth and Heaven: Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, and the Meaning of Christian Tragedy. New York: 1969. p. 195.

39


 
33. F. M. Dostoevski!. Brat'ia Karamazovy. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v tridsati tomakh. Leningrad: "Nauka." Vols. 14 and 15, 1976. Later referred to as PSS, vol. and page. (Vol. 14, pp. 225-226.)
34. George Stephan Painter, op. cit., p. 12.
35. See also the article by V. E. Vetlovskaia, "Literaturnye i fol'klornye istočniki 'Brat'ev Karamazovykh' (Zhitie Alekseiia čeloveka bozhiia i dukhovnyi stikh o n'em)" in Dostoevskii, i russkie pisateli. Moscow: "Sovetskii pisatel' ," 1971, pp. 325-354. Vetlovskaia sees the folk version of the life of Saint Alexis and the religious verses on St. Alexis as sources for Alesha in Dostoevsky's novel.
    It should be noted that Vyacheslav Ivanov analyzed Alesha's image in the chapter "Hagiology" in his work on Dostoevsky. See: Vyacheslav Ivanov, Freedom and the Tragic Life: A Study in Dostoevsky. Translated by Norman Cameron. New York: The Noonday Press, 1952. pp. 142-166, Russian text (written in 1911-1917, 1932): from "Dostoevskii: Tragediia-mif-mistika." Esse, stat'i, perevody. Bruxelles: D. Ivanov et Foyer Oriental Chretien, 1985. Chapter "Agiologiia" pp. 92-106.
36. See Nadine Natov. "Some Plot Invariants in the works of F. M. Dostoevsky as a Means of Expression of His Ideas." Transactions of the Association of Russian-American Scholars in USA.. New York: RAG, Vol. V, 1971, pp. 79-92.
37. Vyacheslav Ivanov, op. cit. Chapter "Demonology." The beginning of this quotation reads: "Lucifer is an all-confining, Ahriman an all-disrupting power." p. 125. Russian text, p. 81.
38. St. Augustine, The Problem of Free Choice (De libero arbitrio) , Translated and Annotated by Dom Mark Pontifex. Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press; London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955.
39. V. Ivanov, op. cit., p. 128; Russian text: p. 32. See also Stewart R. Sutherland's excellent discussion of Ivan's views, especially in chapter V "Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor" in his book Atheism and the Rejection of God: Contemporary Philosophy and the Brothers Karamazov. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1977. Chapters II (pp. 25-39) and V (pp. 70-81).
40. See the definition in George Stephan Painter's book, op.cit., chapter IX, pp. 276-305.
41. Romano Guardini: The Lord. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1954. p. 28.
42. V. Ivanov, op. cit. According to Vyacheslav Ivanov's metaphysics, Smerdiakov incorporates here another aspect of Satan -- "the spirit of insipidity and triviality" -- and, as V. Ivanov defined, exists within Ivan Karamazov and "is a small but typical representative of the Legion of Ahriman." V. Ivanov explains that Ahriman, "the all-disrupting, all- defiling and malignant" is "the spectre of Evil in all the
     

    40

    
     blackness of his shamelessly displayed vacuity and final nullity." pp. 122-123; Russian text: pp. 79-80. See also F. F. Seeley's article "Smerdiakov" in Dostoevsky Studies, No. 7 (1986), pp. 99-105.
43. The problem of Ivan's desire for his father's death and numerous controversial statements concerning this subject pronounced by Ivan, Alesha and Smerdiakov, have been discussed by F. F. Seeley in his article "Ivan Karamazov." New Essays on Dostoevsky, edited by Malcolm V. Jones and Garth M. Terry. London: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 130- 131.
    

    Did he (Ivan) actually want Mitya to kill their father, which would have removed both of them from his path, perhaps no less effectually? The evidence here is complicated and contradictory. On the one hand, we have Alesha's categorical and repeated "It wasn't you who killed him" (XV, 40, 87; XI, v and x) , which can only mean, "you didn't intend to have him killed," for the intention would have been equivalent to the sin. On the same side we have Ivan's assurance to Smerdyakov at their last meeting: "I swear I was not as guilty as you thought, and perhaps I wasn't inciting you at all" (XV, 66-7; XI, viii). The most that Ivan will admit here is that he may have had an unconscious desire (taynoe zhelaniye) for his father's death. But on the other hand, there are his words to Alyosha before the murder: "One reptile will devour the other, and serve them both right!"; and: "who has not the right to desire... even the death (of another)?...As to my desires, I allow myself full scope in this matter" (XV, 131, 132; III, ix).

    See also Richard Peace's interpretation of Ivan's guilt in his book Dostoevsky: An Examination of the Major Novels. London: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Chapter 8, pp. 239-240.
44. Victor Terras. A Karamazov Companion, p. 383, n. 258.
45. See Nadine Natov. "Dostoevskii in the Theatre: Stage Adaptations of The Brothers Karamazov." Canadian-American Slavic Studies, VIII, 3 (Fall 1974). p. 441; and Brat'ia Karamazovy, Producer's Copy 1910. Moscow Art Theater Museum, p. 125.
46. Victor Terras. A Karamazov Companion, p. 410, no. 106.

41

Appendix

Н.Н. Крамской.  Христос в пустыне. 1872

42

ОТ МАРКА

СВЯТОЕ   БЛАГОВЕСТВОВAHИЕ

 9   И было в те дни, пришел Иисус из Назарета   Галилейского и крестился от Иоаииа в Иордане.

10 И когда выходил из воды, тотчас увидел Иоанн разверзающиеся  нeбеcа и Духа, как голубя, сходяшeго нa Нeго.

11 И глас был с небес: Ты Сын Мой Возлюбленный ,в Котором Мое благоволение.

12 Немедленно после того Дух ведет Его в пустыню.

13 И был Он там в пустыне сорок дней, искушаемый сатаною, и   был   со   зверями;  а  Ангелы служили Ему.

ОТ МАТФЕЯ

ГЛАВА 4

1 Искушeниe Ипсусa. 12 Иипcуc в Галилее. 18 Призвание Симона, Андрея. Иакова и  Иоанна. 23 Проповедь и  исцеления в Галилее.

1 Тогда Иисус возведен был Духом в пустыню, для искушения от Диавола,

2 И, постившись сорок дней сорок ночей, напоследок взалкал.

3 И приступил к Нему искуситель в сказал: если Ты Сын Божий, скажи, чтобы камни сии сделались хлебами.

4 Он же сказал ему в ответ: написано: «не хлебом одним будет жить человек, во всяким словом, исходящим из уст Божиих.».

5 Потом берет Его диавол в святый город в поставляет Его на крыле храма.

6 И говорит Ему: если Ты Сын Божий,   бросься   вниз;   ибо   написано:   «Ангелам  Своим  заповедает о Тебе, в на руках понесут Тебя, да не преткнешься о камень ногою Твоею».

7 Иисус сказал ему: написано также: «не искушай Господа Бога твоего».

8 Опять берет Его диавол на весьма высокую гору, и показывает   Ему   все  царства   мира  и славу их

9 И говорит Ему: все это дам Тебе,  если падши  поклонишься мне.

10 Тогда  Иисус  говорит  ему: отойди   от   Меня,   сатана;   ибо написано: «Господу Богу твоему поклоняйся     и     Ему     одному
служи».

11 Тогда оставляет Его диавол, —и се, Ангелы приступили и служили Ему.

 ОТ ЛУКИ

               ГЛАВА 4

1 Искушение Ппсуса.   14 Проповедь в Галилее; отвергнут в Назарете. 31 Исцеляет в Капернауме; бдаговествует в Галiлее.

1 Иисус, исполненный Духа Святого, возвратился от Иордана в поведен был Духом в пустыню.

2  Там сорок дней Он бил искушаем от дiавола и ничего не ел в эти дня; а по прошествии их, напоследок взалкал.

3 И сказал Ему диавол: если Ты Сын  Божий,  то  вели  этому камню сделаться хлебом.

4 Иисус  сказал  ему   в  ответ: написано,  что  не  хлебом одним будет жить человек, но всяким словом Божиим.

5 И  возвед  Его  на  высокую гору,   днавол   показал   Ему   все царства вселенной во мгновение времени,

6 И сказал Ему днавол: Тебе дам власть над всеми сими царствами и славу их, ибо она предана мне, и я, кому хочу, даю ее;

7 Итак, если Ты поклонишься мне, то все будет Твое.

8 Иисусе сказал ему  в  ответ: отойди от Меня, сатана;  написано: «Господу Богу твоему поклоняйся i Ему одному служи».

9 И повел Его в Иерусалим, и поставил Его па крыле храма, и сказал Ему: если Ты Сын Божий», бросься отсюда вниз;

10 Ибо написано: «Ангелам Своим  заповедает о Тебе сохранить Тебя;

11 И на руках понесут Тебя, да не преткнешься о камень ногою Твоею».

12 Иисус сказал ему в ответ: сказано:   «не   искушай   Господа Бога твоего».

13 И окончив все искушение, диавол  отошел от Него до времени.

43

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

SAINT MARK

CHAPTER 1

9 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.

10 And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him:

11 And there came a voice from heaven, ay- ing. Thou art my beloved Son. in whom I am well pleased. 12 And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

13 And he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts' and the angels ministered unto him.

ST. MATTHEW

CHAPTER 4

THEN was Jesus led  up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God. command that these stones be made bread.

4. But he answered and said. It is written. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

6 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple.

6 And saith unto him. If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

7 Jesus said unto him. It is written again. Thou shall not tempt the Lord thy God.

8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

9 And saith unto him. All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

10 Then saith Jesus un to him. Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written. Thou shall worship the Lord thy God, and him only shall thou serve.

11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. 

ST. LUKE

CHAPTER 4

AND Jesus being full of  the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

3 And the devil said unto him. If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

6 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

6 And the devil said unto him. All this power will I give thee. and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me: and to whomsoever I will I give it.

7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

9 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him. If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence:

10 For it is written, He shall five his angels charge over thee, to keep thee:

11 And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

44

The Temptation of Christ, Lorenzo Ghiberti